Question to NT parents: My NT sister.

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My NT sister had a baby a month ago and during the entire pregnancy, she was terrified her kid would have Down's Syndrome or be on the spectrum.

She spent hundreds of dollars on various tests, genetic and otherwise, and it took a pertussis outbreak to convince her she should vaccinate. She avoided everything with mercury in it and bought as many organic only products as she could.

And then, the baby was born, she had the highest apgar score possible, her eyes were open, and she instantly focused her attention on the nearest face to her.

This kid is beyond a doubt 100% interested in human faces,and human contact,and could care very little about her dangly toys. She has a little bit of colic, however, and my sister on the phone kept telling me how inconsolable she is when she starts crying and how she is up all night.

To afford my sister some sleep, I went over there to watch the baby, and spent most of the time sitting there on the couch holding her while she started very intently at my face. Every time she started to cry, out of obvious stomach discomfort, I would start singing to her, and I found, she would instantly shut up. Not only would she shut up, but she would stop those minor struggles that babies do, and be dead silent, and dead still as I sang.

Later that day, as my sister was holding her, she started fussing again, and I started singing, and again, she shut up. Not only did she shut up, but she turned her attention towards me and strained to get closer.

When I was speaking to my sister later that day, and the baby started to cry, I suggested to my sister that she sing to her. At this point, I discovered that my sister not only does not sing to her, but has some aversion, the reason of which she will not tell me.

I do not understand, after all the worry that the kid would show a profound lack of interest in others, my sister refuses to sing to her baby being the kid obviously likes it, and I was hoping someone could explain.

I'm not NT but I can tell you that as a mother, post-partum depression sounds HIGHLY likely in this case. Depression causes issues with the attachment of the mother to the child, and I suggest having someone talk to her and potentially get her on some meds that can help until her hormones balance back out. I had very bad postpartum depression with my sons and that kind of behavior is a sign that she needs to see someone.

i dont really think this is an NT issue. it sounds like your sister is a little paranoid, tho. could be new mother thing, could be something else, i dunno.

try to find out whether she doesnt want to sing herself, or doesnt want anyone else to. is playing music or the radio ok? could you record a cd of yourself singing so your sister could play it for the baby when shes colicky? there are dvds you can get for babies that show faces and have music, maybe your sister could stand that to be playing.

if the colic continues, your sister may get to the point that a lot of moms of fussy babies get to; the point where they will try anything, no matter how weird or freaky, to get the baby to stop crying. maybe she will be open to singing then.

If it's postpartum depression, darkmystic's advice is best. I think if it's post partum depression, she'll have other signs and not just being averse to singing.

If it really is an aversion to singing, there is a way to overcome that. Some people just feel really weird and self conscious singing for an audience, even if that audience is a non-judgmental baby. I felt weird at first too. The solution I found was to have a CD of lullibies playing in the background and I sang along to it. It's easier to overcome that feeling if somebody else is singing too, even if that somebody else is a recording.

Maybe you can give her a CD of lullabies for a gift.

I hope you get more chances to sing to her. Sometimes aunts (and uncles) can do things that parents can't and that's a natural role to fill.

Is it possible that your sister has tried that and it didn't work for her and maybe she's just not telling you about it for whatever reason (embarassed, or just simply didn't mention, etc.)?

Babies are pretty amazing and they have an understanding of what they do and do not like. I know with my son, he absolutely hated it when I sang to him. It would make him cry more. This wasn't the case with my husband, or his aunt, or anyone else who sang to him - just me. My daughter was not like this. She liked it when anyone, including me, would sing to her. I don't know. It's just a thought.

As for the other behavior, I know I was pretty neurotic with my first. I worried about every little thing, probably to the point of obsession. I did suffer from pretty bad baby blues, compounded by feeding problems and a severe illness with my own mother. Maybe a lot of pre-baby worry translates into post-baby depression. Again, I don't really know.

I was much more relaxed with my second and did not suffer from any depression after giving birth. Although I was depressed during the 1st trimester with both of them, but I think the constant nausea had a lot to do with that.

My 1st had colic and it was truly horrible. Poor baby cried non stop for the first three months. then...he started smiling. It was like the clouds parted and the sun came out, beautiful. We used to listen to and (only when alone) sing to lulabyes. The link below was our favorite tape (back then, cassette) and now what we buy others as a new baby gift.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006 ... ss_product

Oh no!

But, yes, babies can be funny that way. And, to the OP, if your sister has tried singing to her baby and it didn't work, while it works perfectly for you, it may well have torn a giant hole in her self-esteem. Given how new mother hormones tend to make us all incredibly insecure and easily upset, that giant hole is probably practically a black hole by now.

It sounds to me like your sister has some mighty ideals of perfection for herself as a mother, and reality hits hard when someone has those expectations but was blessed with something less than the perfectly compatible baby, which is probably 99% of the time. I don't know if any of it is related to post-partum depression, or if it is just your sister's personality type, but I suspect she is having to go through some oversize personal adjustments right now. Babies do not perform on schedule, or by the book, or anything else, no matter how much some of us would like to believe that will be the case. Sometimes I wonder if it's just God's sense of humor, but since I was determined to keep my baby with me in my office while I worked (many of my friends had done that, and I was self-employed, so why not, right?), I had the one baby who absolutely refused to ever step foot in that place without wailing.

I think the best thing you can do for your sister is try to commiserate about how hard having a new born is for all mothers, and how it almost never is the way you think it will be. Make sure you tell her that you know she'll be a wonderful mother, even if there are details and choices she is making that you disagree with (most of the time new mothers hear the disagreements, but not the support, so you have to really emphasize the support). And, um, present hints like the singing as gentle hints; don't let her see how easy that happened for you. Every mom comes blessed with different gifts and maybe what she needs most right now is to believe in hers.

Depression, lack of sleep, hormonal issues, and exhaustion are likely why she would not take advantage of something that will fix her 'problem' of the baby crying.

Me, too - it was well past the colicky stage before I could calm my son by singing (and there is a whole list of songs that "scare" him) Now, neither of us is solidly NT, but I will never forget the searing hurt I felt when DS doubled his screaming when I quietly launched into "Hush, little baby."

New Motherhood is hard on anybody; parents living through colic should get a medal - or an automatic monthly spa vacation. Since it's nearly relentless and has the extra bonus feature of depriving you of sleep, in comparison, most of the AS meltdowns we've lived through seem like a walk in the park. I am still slightly traumatized by babies, though we got through it unscathed (well, but for that.)